


I Don't Know Anything (But I Know I Miss You)

by chicafrom3



Category: folklore - Taylor Swift (Album), folklore: Teenage Love Triangle - Taylor Swift
Genre: Character Study, Coming Out, F/F, Friends to Lovers, Growing Up
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-11
Updated: 2020-12-11
Packaged: 2021-03-10 20:33:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,332
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28003194
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chicafrom3/pseuds/chicafrom3
Summary: Betty, I won't make assumptions, but I think it's 'cause of me.James and Betty, over the years.
Relationships: james/betty
Comments: 3
Kudos: 18
Collections: Yuletide 2020





	I Don't Know Anything (But I Know I Miss You)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [hernameinthesky](https://archiveofourown.org/users/hernameinthesky/gifts).



> This isn't quite the fic that I set out to write, but James got into my head and wouldn't leave.
> 
> It also takes a few liberties with the timeline suggested by canon, but, hey, canon doesn't definitively _state_ that Betty switched her homeroom _after_ James's summer thing with the August girl, right?
> 
> Happy Yuletide, and thank you for the prompts, hernameinthesky!

At five years old, James's best friend in the _world_ was Betty next door. Betty was everything it was possible for a kid to be, as far as James was concerned: she was brave (she could climb to the top branches of the big oak tree in James's backyard, and did), she was smart (she could already read by herself, and sometimes read aloud to James), she was creative (she was always coming up with games and plans, like the day they played cowboys and pirates, which was the greatest game _ever_ ), she was pretty (even covered in mud and grass stains, she was pretty).

James, who was always in trouble for being underfoot and overlooked, wanted to be Betty.

Failing that, she wanted to spend all her time with Betty, which was much easier to accomplish. Maybe not _all_ her time, but weekends and afternoons? That she could do.

"Do you wanna play hide and seek?" Betty asked. "I think my mom's making cookies. We can probably have some later."

Betty's mom made the best cookies in the whole neighborhood. James's mom never made cookies. It was another reason why James wanted to be Betty. "Hide and seek sounds like fun," James said. "Can I hide first?" She'd found a really good hiding place recently, under the hedges.

"Okay," Betty said. "I'll count to fifty, okay?"

"Count to a hundred."

Betty made a face, but covered her eyes and started counting out loud. James got up and ran for the hedges.

Betty would find her – Betty always found her – but that was part of the fun.

-

At nine years old, James still considered Betty her best friend, but best friendship wasn't exactly as easy as it had been at five years old. Fourth grade was harder, for one thing – well, harder for James, whose handwriting was never neat enough, who couldn't understand fractions no matter how many times they were explained to her, who didn't know what the difference was between a simile and a metaphor and didn't exactly care; Betty didn't seem to have any problems keeping up.

And that didn't just mean that Mrs. Johnson got frustrated with James but was always pleased with Betty's nice neat worksheets. The other kids in their class who did well – particularly the other girls in their class – followed suit, too. Eva and Mary and Jean wanted to sit with Betty at lunch and talk about schoolwork, and play with Betty at recess – nice, neat games, like hopscotch and four-square and playing on the swings, not sword-fighting with sticks and hide-and-seek in the brambly area in the back of the playground and dodgeball. They would let James play with them, too, if Betty asked, but James could tell that they didn't really want to, so she would usually play by herself or with the other kids who Mrs. Johnson called "rambunctious".

She still had Betty at the weekends, at least.

She was the first one Betty told when her dad left. James didn't understand. "For the week?" she guessed, sitting on Betty's back porch. "For work?"

Betty shook her head. Her eyes looked funny. Kinda red. "Mom says he's not coming home."

"'Til when?"

"'Til ever."

"Oh." James bit at a hangnail on her left thumb. She wondered what that would feel like, if one of her parents just... didn't come home. "Do you want to sleep over at my house tonight?"

Betty thought about it and then nodded. Then she said, "Let's not play hide and seek today, okay?"

"Okay," James said. "I'm not going anywhere."

Betty reached out and took her hand, wrapped her fingers around James's. "Tell me something nice?"

"You're my favorite person," James said, because it was true, and because it would make Betty smile.

It did.

-

At thirteen years old, James had no clue where she fit in, at home or at school or _anywhere_.

Junior high was hard.

It was like there was this whole secret code to being a girl and she'd missed it somewhere. She didn't seem to fit in with any of the cliques or groups that had formed, seemingly overnight.

Betty did. It didn't matter that she didn't have the money to go shopping every weekend like most of the popular girls, or that she spent study hall actually studying instead of passing notes about boys, or that when it got cold she wore cardigans and sweatshirts and sensibly warm things like that instead of still wearing flirty tank tops and dresses and... whatever. None of that mattered, because Betty _got it_. She could do whatever she wanted and she still fit with whoever she wanted to fit in with, because...

James didn't know. Maybe Betty was magic.

Betty just, inherently, _understood_ this whole teenage-girl thing in a way that James, with her constantly-ripped jeans and unbrushed hair and dirty sneakers, found impossible.

They weren't spending as much time together, either. Between the mountains of homework their teachers gave them and all of Betty's new friends and James's decision to learn how to skateboard, there just wasn't a lot of time for backyard shenanigans – and most of Betty's new friends thought hide-and-seek and sword fights with sticks were childish – and James felt awkward trying to talk to her at school.

So when Betty invited her to her birthday party, James didn't know what to say. A year ago it would've been an easy _of course_ , but that was a year ago. "Are you sure?"

Betty looked at her curiously. "Of course I'm sure. You're my best friend."

That made her feel special. "I don't think your other friends like me very much."

"Well," Betty said, and didn't argue. "It's my birthday and it's my party and I want you there."

James dug the toe of her sneaker into the dirt. "Okay. I'll go."

The party wasn't great. Betty's friends spent the whole time competing with each other for Betty's attention and James drifted at the edges, not really talking to anyone or doing anything, feeling painfully lonely. The only time anyone tried to include her in the conversation was when Inez (James's _least favorite person in the world_ ) turned to her suddenly, in the middle of a too-loud conversation about boys, and asked, "What about you, James? Do you have a crush on anyone?"

James caught Betty's eye. Then looked away. Her cheeks felt hot, all of a sudden, and she wasn't sure why. "No."

The other girls giggled a lot. Betty didn't.

James excused herself and hid in the bathroom for a while. Then went outside and skateboarded up and down the driveway while Betty opened presents.

She missed Betty more than ever.

-

At seventeen, James almost wrecked everything.

Junior year had been a confusing haze of failing math class, learning to drive, and dodging lesbian rumors spearheaded by none other than Inez, still James's least favorite person. The rumors weren't because anyone knew (no one knew, no one but James, at least that was what she kept telling herself), but because she wore her hair short and skateboarded in the park and smoked in the courtyard during lunch.

In November, Betty had switched her homeroom from Mrs. Anderson's class to Mrs. Gomez's, and James never asked her why. It was the only class they'd had together. She wouldn't have been able to stand it if Betty had said it was because of the rumors about her.

And then there was the spring formal. James hadn't wanted to go – almost hadn't gone – _shouldn't_ have gone. Regretted going, as soon as she walked into the gym and heard Betty's favorite song playing over the tinny speakers and saw Betty, effortlessly beautiful in a light green dress, spinning in Henry Benson's arms.

She felt like throwing up.

Instead she turned around and walked out and didn't talk to Betty for the rest of the school year. Not that it seemed like Betty was in any rush to talk to her, either.

When school let out, she got a job at the beach, as a lifeguard. She planned to just spend two months brooding on the sand.

It was hard to do that, with Summer hanging around the lifeguard stand, so pretty, so effortlessly cool, flirting with her. No girl had ever flirted with her before. It did things to James's insides.

She was walking home after work one evening, taking her time, thinking mostly about Betty – wondering if Betty ever missed her, if Betty ever thought about her the way she thought about Betty, if Betty was out with stupid Henry Benson – when a beat-up Toyota pulled up next to her and Summer called through the open window, "Hey, James! Need a ride?"

James's heartbeat stuttered. "You sure? I think I'm out of your way."

Summer smiled like high noon. "James, get in the car."

And, then, well. Things happened.

And by the time school started back up, everyone knew. Somehow. Maybe James hadn't been _discreet_ enough. But somehow Inez had found out, and if Inez knew, everyone knew.

Betty knew.

Lesbian rumors weren't rumors anymore, and it felt like nobody would look her in the eye. Or maybe it was her that couldn't look anybody in the eye. Hard to tell for sure. Most of senior year passed in a haze of depression.

Sometime in February Betty cornered her outside her house and said, "You've been avoiding me for months."

James swallowed. "I don't think that's exactly what's been going on."

"We're best friends, James, we should be able to talk." Betty's lips were trembling. James shouldn't be looking at Betty's lips. She looked down at her sneakers instead. There was a hole in the toe of the right one. "Why'd you do it?"

"Isn't it obvious?" James said sullenly. Summer, with her long legs and sunshine smile and denim cutoffs, was the first girl to ever flirt with her. To want to kiss her. To want to... more than kiss her. That was a lot. "Inez told the whole damn school I'm a lesbian."

"That's not what I mean," Betty said. "I mean – why her? Why her and not me?"

James looked up sharply. Too late. Betty was running away, back to her own house, the back door slamming shut.

-

At twenty, James was in love with her best friend, and was pretty sure she was the luckiest girl in the world.

She worked at the grocery store, stocking shelves. Betty kept trying to talk her into applying for classes at the local community college, but she'd had more than enough of school, _thank_ you. Betty was studying early childhood education at the big state college – James had no clue how she could stand spending all day in classes, but she was pretty sure Betty was going to be the best teacher ever, and told her so, often.

It hadn't been easy, getting here.

James had almost ruined things, more than once. Most dramatically when Betty told her she was going away to school. She'd assumed – she'd thought Betty going away to school meant Betty leaving her. And why wouldn't it? Betty could do so much better than their stupid little town, with its stupid, small-minded people.

Betty could do so much better than James.

The resulting fight had lasted almost two weeks until Betty had figured out what James was thinking and went to track her down. "You idiot," she'd said with so much love and affection in her voice that it made James warm to think about, even now, years later. "You know, I was thinking of getting off-campus housing. How'd you like to live together?"

It had been expensive. They'd made it work.

They were still making it work.

James had taken the afternoon off work. While Betty was in class, she finished up some shopping and then went back to their little studio apartment and started baking.

By the time the door opened, signifying that Betty was home from school, James was ready. She quickly yanked her hair out of the ponytail she'd put it back in for baking and brushed off the flour from her t-shirt and hurried out to meet her girlfriend. "Surprise!" Then she stopped. "What's wrong?"

Betty looked like a wreck. Her dress was covered with mud, her hair was falling out of its braids, and she'd been crying. She tried to smile at James and completely failed. "Oh, it's just b-been the _worst_ day. You know, one of those d-days that j-just _everything_ goes wrong?" She looked past James, at the table. "Did you make _dinner_?"

"That doesn't matter, right now," James said, genuinely concerned. Betty looked like she felt awful. "Go take a shower – you'll feel better – I'll make you something warm to drink, okay?"

By the time Betty came out of the shower in dry, clean pajamas, James had a steaming mug of her favorite chamomile tea ready, and Betty's softest cardigan warm from the dryer to wrap her up in.

"What did I do to deserve all this?" Betty asked, sinking down onto the couch.

James sat next to her. "You don't need to do anything to deserve it. You had a bad day. You should get something to make it better."

Betty smiled. "But I wasn't even expecting you to be home yet – and you made dinner?"

"Oh!" James had almost forgotten. She bounced back up to her feet and ran over to the table. She carefully and strategically cut a slice of cake to avoid the sunken-in bit in the middle, transferred it to a plate, and delivered it proudly to Betty. "Happy birthday! Dessert first, then dinner."

"Wh – do you know I actually forgot it was my birthday?"

"I didn't. You're my favorite person."

Betty looked at her so softly that her heart skipped. "Don't ever go anywhere. Okay, James?"

"Never again," James promised, and meant it, and didn't mind at all when the cake icing ended up smeared on her shirt when Betty kissed her.


End file.
